Lyra
“Argh!”
The sound tore out of my throat the exact second the heavy oak door thudded shut behind him.
It wasn’t a clean cry; it was raw, jagged agony ripping through my ribs like a rusty blade being pulled from an open wound.
My knees buckled completely, striking the floorboards.
My lungs burned as though I had sprinted through fire.
I slammed my palms against my temples, squeezing hard, terrified that if I let go, my skull would shatter into fragments.
What kind of sick fate was this?
What twisted joke had the Moon Goddess written for my life?
Why me?
Why did every ounce of humiliation, every lash, every cruel torment have to land squarely on my shoulders?
My breath came in ragged gasps as the memory burned itself behind my eyelids: Lucien holding Selene, pressing his lips to hers with the raw hunger of a man claiming the woman he adored.
Their bodies tangled in the sheets.
His voice, low and thick with absolute satisfaction.
And me—forced to stand bound, forced to watch, forced to pretend I was made of hollow stone instead of bleeding flesh.
I was still their mate.
The ancient, sacred bond still ran through my veins, even if they treated it like dirt beneath their boots.
I felt the phantom pull in every nerve ending.
Shouldn’t that mean something?
Didn’t I deserve even the smallest crumb of human decency?
A terrible ache throbbed behind my ribs.
It wasn’t jealousy—I refused to call it that—it was something far uglier, far deeper.
Acid spreading through my bloodstream.
I didn’t ask for this mate-bond.
I didn’t ask to be born into this curse.
Maybe once, in the quiet darkness of my old room, I had foolishly hoped that being chosen by the Moon Goddess would mean love, belonging, and protection.
But if I had known—if I had known for a single second that this nightmare was waiting for me—I would have begged the heavens to leave me unmated.
I would have prayed to be a nameless outcast.
My wrists screamed in pain as I thrashed against the silk cords.
The bindings bit deeper into my flesh, scraping away raw skin, making me hiss through clenched teeth.
With one final, violent pull, the knot slipped, and the ropes slithered to the floor.
Thick, angry red bands wrapped around my wrists, swollen and pulsing in time with my frantic heartbeat.
For a long moment, I just stared at the marks.
Cold proof of my utter powerlessness.
Proof of what it meant to be tied to the Alpha brothers.
Slowly, on legs that felt like hollow glass, I forced myself upright.
Every joint in my body protested, every breath tasting like ash.
I reached down, grabbing the edge of the heavy duvet and hauling it off the mattress.
The heavy scent of silk, sweat, and betrayal clung to the fabric.
My vision blurred instantly.
Hot tears spilled over before I could blink, heavy droplets falling silently onto the dark sheets, blooming into damp circles.
I pressed a bruised hand over my mouth to choke back the sob, but a broken, pathetic sound escaped anyway.
My mates had touched another woman.
My own sister.
And they had dragged me into the room specifically to make sure I watched every second.
Trembling, I gathered the sheets into a bundle and began the only thing left for me to do…
I cleaned.
After agonizing minutes of scrubbing, wiping away every trace of what I had been forced to witness, swallowing the bitter bile in my throat with every movement, the room finally looked spotless.
As if no one had been touched.
As if my heart hadn’t just been stomped into the dust.
I straightened my posture, turning toward the threshold to slip away before my legs collapsed under me.
But fate wasn’t finished with me yet.
The door swung open with a violent thud, bouncing off the stone wall.
I froze mid-step.
Kael.
His massive frame filled the entrance, his icy aura instantly suffocating the small room.
My breath caught in a sharp, painful hitch.
Not again.
I didn’t have enough strength left inside me for another command, another humiliation, another strike—emotional or physical.
My soul was already stretched to the absolute breaking point.
Drawing in a shaky breath, I lowered my gaze and tried to step past him into the hallway, praying to whatever remained of the gods that he would just let me pass.
Kael’s hand shot out like a striking viper.
His thick fingers clamped around my bruised wrist, yanking me backward so hard my shoulder popped with a sharp burn.
“Are your eyes broken?” he demanded, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble laced with dark irritation.
His grip tightened, his thumb digging brutally into the tender welts left by Lucien’s ropes.
My knees wobbled.
“I…
I saw you, Alpha Kael,” I stammered, the words tumbling out on a trembling exhale as I forced my head into a low bow—a formal mark of submission he claimed to despise, yet violently demanded.
Why do they hate me this much?
Why does my very breath feel like an insult to them?
My mind spun in exhausting circles searching for an answer, but all I found was a vast, empty void.
I was nothing to them but a punching bag.
A scapegoat.
The unwanted shadow of the twin sister they actually loved.
And at the rate they were going, I knew they would eventually drive me into the grave.
“Look at me.” His voice cut through my thoughts like a whip.
Kael released my wrist, only to catch my chin in a iron grip.
His fingers were rough, deliberately forcing my face upward.
Pain shot along my jawline, but beneath the sting came something far more terrifying: heat.
I forced my swollen eyes to meet his.
Deep, burning amber, blazing with an emotion I couldn’t decipher.
Rage?
Disgust?
Possession?
Standing this close was suffocating.
His scent enveloped me—cedar, hearth-fire, and something dark and wild—and my traitorous body reacted instantly.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
My stomach did a sickening flip.
Deep within my chest, my wolf stirred, recognizing her mate despite everything he had done to break us.
His thumb moved slowly, brushing over the curve of my jaw, and a faint, arrogant smirk touched the corner of his lips.
“You really enjoy hunting for my attention, don’t you, Lyra?” he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, infuriatingly intimate register.
No.
No, I don’t.
I wanted his eyes off me.
I wanted to be a thousand miles away from his touch.
Yet the room seemed to tilt as he leaned down, his face descending toward mine.
His lips hovered a hairsbreadth away from my own—so close I could feel the radiant heat of his skin, so close I could taste the warm air leaving his mouth.
His breath fanned over my nose and cheeks, slow, unhurried, claiming space he had forfeited the moment he chose Selene.
My chest squeezed tight.
Against every grain of sense, against my own sanity, my body leaned forward a fraction.
It was pure, pathetic instinct, drawn to him like a freezing animal to a fire that promised to burn it to cinders.
I screamed at myself internally to pull back, to slap his hand away, to run—but my limbs were frozen.
For a single heartbeat, the universe shrank down to just the heat of his mouth.
Kael’s amber eyes flicked downward to my lips.
And then—
A heavy, impatient knock boomed against the wooden door frame.
The trance snapped instantly.
Air surged back into my starved lungs.
Kael straightened slowly, his jaw hardening into a rigid line, leaving me standing there—wide-eyed, breathless, shaking, caught between absolute terror and a disgraceful, dangerous longing I wished I could rip out of my heart forever.